“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23)
Someone commented recently about things
(like humbleness) not coming naturally to us, and today’s passage resonates
with that truth. What Jesus teaches us doesn’t come naturally to us. Oh, some
small part may do so because of the way we were raised, but we can’t do it all
ourselves, and when we try, it’s like the passage above. We stumble around in the dark.
The first point is that we aren’t mean
to do it all ourselves. We aren’t meant to do it all ourselves at any point,
but at this point, we’re less able. In fact, it’s interesting that just about
the time we are supposedly at our peak of power financially, emotionally,
socially, etc., our bodies decline so that we have to look to others for help
there.
But I want to return very specifically
to the example Jesus provides, because it’s rich, and personally demonstrated.
Without correction, my vision is (at best) 20/200. That means that what someone
with good vision sees clearly 200 feet away has to be 20 feet away for me to
see it as clearly. Presbyopia (old eyes) might be improving my near sightedness
a little. I also have astigmatism, meaning that things that are clear to you
are blurry to me.
All this means that I need vision correction to function “normally” in society. I need a different way to see. If
I were blind, I would need a different way to see. I might use echolocation or hearing to see. Or touch. I might have to have the help of another
person or a guide dog to make it through the day. Without them the greatness of
my darkness would be great indeed.
The same is true about spiritual
vision. We are often blind. Sometimes, we may see a little, but what we see is distorted
or fuzzy. And that might be a good thing because we wouldn’t like what we saw.
God gives us just enough light and vision as we can handle – or to accomplish
His will. We get tiny glimpses of Him, and short glimpses of ourselves – but generally
only as we learn to see with eyes that are not physical – eyes of love and eyes of faith.
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